Organizers estimate that as many as 400 workers at more than 60 fast food restaurants in the Detroit metro area walked off the job on Friday, in what may be the largest fast food strike in American history.

Leaders in the workers rights campaign said the strike has shut down multiple restaurants entirely, including multiple McDonald’s outlets, a Long John Silver’s, a Burger King, two Popeye’s restaurants, and a KFC. At one McDonald’s, management attempted to avert a shutdown by bringing in replacement workers—but those replacement workers then promptly joined the strike.

The strike in Detroit is the second major labor action to hit an American city’s fast food industry this week: On Wednesday and Thursday, more than 100 workers in St. Louis walked off the job at roughly 30 different restaurants. These rolling walkouts followed similar actions in New York, central Pennsylvania, and Chicago. The fact that two strikes have now occurred in a single week—including, potentially, the biggest strike yet—suggests that the nationwide trend of labor unrest in the fast food industry is intensifying, not abating. ...

As in other fast food strikes, Detroit workers are demanding the right to form a union and that their base pay be raised to $15 an hour. But this strike takes place in the unique context of Michigan labor politics: Once an historic stronghold for the country’s manufacturing unions, the the state now has “right-to-work” laws on the books and a Republican state government which is deeply hostile to organized labor. The Detroit strike is the first such action to occur within a right-to-work state.

This could be the beginning of labour rights war II. Welcome to the beginning of the 20th century. This could get very nasty before it gets betterWhile this is British, I think the article is well worth considering:Recession is a good time to exploit cheap labour, says Cameron aideLord Young says low-wage conditions are a bonus for business, drawing a furious response from the TUC[/break1]guardian.co.uk/business/2013/may/11/young-recession-cheap-labour]http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013 ... eap-labourI'd note that if you get to a point where people can't pay for the necessities of life, they will become discontented and look for the source of that discontent. Low wages is one (easy) place to look. And, I've said it before but it bears repeating again, the wealthy ought to be bowing down to FDR every single day for saving their bacon with the New Deal. Because it could have gotten very, very ugly. They've forgotten.

That is why, and they don't seem to service it coming, the Tories are headed to same corner of the dustbin that the GOP occupies. They have unashamedly become anti-middle class, and overtly take care of their base.

Of the many things current conservatives seem to have forgotten in their worshiping of the "good old days" - i.e.; circa pre-1900 - that the conditions of that time were what led to the rise of unions, government regulations,and the income tax. We may be seeing a resurgence of that as people start getting sick and tired (if they aren't already) of the miserable working conditions and pay, along with the concentration of wealth with no concern for the society.

Hundreds of Milwaukee workers plan to walk off the job starting at 6 AM Central Time this morning, launching the nation’s fifth fast food workers’ strike in six weeks. Today’s work stoppage follows strikes in St. Louis and Detroit last week, and in New York and Chicago last month. In each case, workers are demanding a raise to $15 per hour, and the right to form a union without intimidation.

“I’m so amped up and ready,” Milwaukee McDonald’s employee Stephanie Sanders told The Nation last night. Sanders, a 33 year-old who recently returning to working at McDonald’s following a stretch in retail, said that she would be striking “basically to help my generation out, and the next generation to follow.” Along with low wages and the lack of job security, Sanders said she wanted to do something about punitive management: “Just because you have on a blue shirt doesn’t mean you’re better than me.”

As I’ve reported, these recent work stoppages share several common characteristics: Each is a one-day strike by fast food workers, backed by a coalition of unions and community groups, lasting a single day, targeting major companies throughout the industry, and mobilizing a minority of the workforce in hopes of building broader support. While different local organizations have been involved in each city’s actions, the Service Employees International Union has played a significant role in all of them.

The campaign expects today’s strikes to involve workers from fast food chains including McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell. Like Chicago’s, the Milwaukee strike involves retail as well as fast food: workers from companies including TJ Max, Dollar Tree, and Foot Action plan to strike. Both industries are increasingly prevalent in – and representative of – the US economy, and both are overwhelmingly non-union.

This morning marks the start of what will likely be the largest fast food worker mobilization in U.S. history, with a New York City walkout today kicking off strikes in seven cities over four days. These work stoppages by non-union workers are the latest escalation in an embattled labor movement’s unprecedented challenge to the overwhelmingly non-union industry, whose ranks are growing and whose conditions are spreading elsewhere in the U.S. economy.

“I know you’re tired of suffering,” KFC employee Naquasia LeGrand told fellow workers gathered with clergy and politicians at a rally last Wednesday announcing that New York City worker-activists had voted to strike this week. “I don’t want to see the next generation suffering and suffering. I don’t want my kids suffering. I want to make sure they have a better future than I do.” Looking out on a crowd of about 150 at the entrance to Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, LeGrand added, “So if I want that to happen, I need you guys to stand with me just as long as I’m standing with you.”

As Salon first reported, the fast food effort went public last November, with a strike by about 200 employees of various chains in New York City. Over the past four months, that walkout has been followed by similar work stoppages in five other cities, and a second New York City strike roughly twice as large. Each of those strikes has been backed by the Service Employees International Union and local allies, and each has shared the same demands: a raise to $15 per hour, and the chance to form a union with intimidation by management. This week’s strikes will include five of those six cities – New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, and Milwaukee- and two new ones: Kansas City and Flint, Mich. (A spokesperson for the campaign in Seattle, where workers struck in May, told Salon to expect “a series of escalating direct actions” there this week.) ...

Whether workers can transform that industry – rather than just hoping to rise within in – has big implications for labor’s future. First, because fast food jobs are increasingly representative of US work: poor compensation, little job security, a constant expectation to put on a happy face for customers, and virtually no unions.

And second, because – following a decades-long economic, judicial, and political attack – the campaign’s strategy represents some of the ways organizers are attempting to break free from a strategic box labor’s been left in to die. Among them: Given the law’s failure to meaningfully compel companies to bargain collectively even when workers want to, and the limits of slick anti-corporate P.R. campaigns that don’t deeply involve workers, some low-wage non-union workers are taking up the strike. Facing changes that have made strikes more risky and less effective, they’re mounting short-term strikes by a minority of the workforce designed to ignite further activism, embarrass management, and engage the public, while reducing (but not eliminating) the risk the workers will lose their jobs.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fast-food workers in hundreds of U.S. cities staged a day of strikes and rallies on Thursday to demand higher wages, saying the pay was too low to feed a family and forced most to accept public assistance.

The protests escalated a series of actions at several Walmart stores on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, seeking to draw attention to workers at the lowest end of the wage scale.

The description of fast-food workers, once viewed mainly as teenagers looking for pocket money, has changed. Today's fast-food worker is typically over 20, often raising a child, and 68 percent are the primary wage earners in their families, according to a report by the University of Illinois and the University of California, Berkeley. ...

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau and public benefit programs show 52 percent of fast-food workers relying on at least one form of public assistance, between 2007 and 2011, according to the report from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Illinois.

The anti union crowd will certainly whine when their Big Macs cost an extra dime. {|=It's gonna be more than that - you don't think Mikkie D's is going let any crap like this eat into the profits do you??? A mean seriously now. IMHO: The prices have been kept artificially low by paying the workers very little. The owners/stockholders are used to this cash coming in. They aren't going to let that profit go.

The anti union crowd will certainly whine when their Big Macs cost an extra dime. {|=It's gonna be more than that - you don't think Mikkie D's is going let any crap like this eat into the profits do you??? A mean seriously now. IMHO: The prices have been kept artificially low by paying the workers very little. The owners/stockholders are used to this cash coming in. They aren't going to let that profit go.I doubt it. Consider how many items every fast food worker pushes out every hour. Unless Mickey Dees decides that it needs to keep their profit margins the same, I'd think an extra dime would cover a $2 an hour raise. That's the most a worker could expect anyway.I always wondered why a Union Made shirt cost $10 more than an import when there was barely $10 of labor in the shirt in the first place.

It is not just the cutting, sewing, and finishing for which you are paying when you buy a "Union Made" shirt. You are also buying working conditions that don't kill or injure people. You are buying clean restrooms, chances for breaks, and a chance to eat lunch. You are buying job security even for the lowest-paid workers. You may be paying benefits that are not paid anywhere else in the country. You are buying, I hope, textiles produced by union workers from crops cultivated and harvested safely by union workers. I hope you are buying transportation, warehousing, and retail delivery by union workers. Does that add up to $10 more? It certainly could if the shirt was produced in Oregon instead of Bangladesh.

“The truth is, we know so little about life, we don’t really know what the good news is and what the bad news is.” Kurt Vonnegut

The anti union crowd will certainly whine when their Big Macs cost an extra dime. {|=It's gonna be more than that - you don't think Mikkie D's is going let any crap like this eat into the profits do you??? A mean seriously now. IMHO: The prices have been kept artificially low by paying the workers very little. The owners/stockholders are used to this cash coming in. They aren't going to let that profit go.I doubt it. Consider how many items every fast food worker pushes out every hour. Unless Mickey Dees decides that it needs to keep their profit margins the same, I'd think an extra dime would cover a $2 an hour raise. That's the most a worker could expect anyway.I always wondered why a Union Made shirt cost $10 more than an import when there was barely $10 of labor in the shirt in the first place.Your average grill person at McD's could make about 200 regular patties and 60 1/4 pound patties per hour. At least that's what he or she could do in the early nineties. I think the grills have gotten better and faster since that time.At my relatively low volume McD's we had 3 grills (18 feet of grill), so highest volume would be triple that.

Your average grill person at McD's could make about 200 regular patties and 60 1/4 pound patties per hour. At least that's what he or she could do in the early nineties. I think the grills have gotten better and faster since that time.At my relatively low volume McD's we had 3 grills (18 feet of grill), so highest volume would be triple that.Even figuring that you have to split it 5 ways, that's still a lot of extra $$$ even at a dime extra. I'd gladly pay an extra $2 for my groceries to allow my checker to earn a living wage. Paying someone a decent wage just doesn't add that much to the bill.

Your average grill person at McD's could make about 200 regular patties and 60 1/4 pound patties per hour. At least that's what he or she could do in the early nineties. I think the grills have gotten better and faster since that time.At my relatively low volume McD's we had 3 grills (18 feet of grill), so highest volume would be triple that.Even figuring that you have to split it 5 ways, that's still a lot of extra $$$ even at a dime extra. I'd gladly pay an extra $2 for my groceries to allow my checker to earn a living wage. Paying someone a decent wage just doesn't add that much to the bill.I try to shop at Costco when the opportunity arises - when I need 36 rolls of toilet paper.

Your average grill person at McD's could make about 200 regular patties and 60 1/4 pound patties per hour. At least that's what he or she could do in the early nineties. I think the grills have gotten better and faster since that time.At my relatively low volume McD's we had 3 grills (18 feet of grill), so highest volume would be triple that.Even figuring that you have to split it 5 ways, that's still a lot of extra $$$ even at a dime extra. I'd gladly pay an extra $2 for my groceries to allow my checker to earn a living wage. Paying someone a decent wage just doesn't add that much to the bill.I think someone figured out that increasing the average McD's salary to something like $10.50 would only increase the price of a Big Mac (or other sandwich) about $0.05. So it would be less than a dime.

Your average grill person at McD's could make about 200 regular patties and 60 1/4 pound patties per hour. At least that's what he or she could do in the early nineties. I think the grills have gotten better and faster since that time.At my relatively low volume McD's we had 3 grills (18 feet of grill), so highest volume would be triple that.Even figuring that you have to split it 5 ways, that's still a lot of extra $$$ even at a dime extra. I'd gladly pay an extra $2 for my groceries to allow my checker to earn a living wage. Paying someone a decent wage just doesn't add that much to the bill.I think someone figured out that increasing the average McD's salary to something like $10.50 would only increase the price of a Big Mac (or other sandwich) about $0.05. So it would be less than a dime.Labor costs make up a huge part of any business along with the demand to $15.00 (double what the pikers are paying now). Double your labor costs will send a BigCrack up a bit more than a nickel.

It's been years since I did the stat reports for McD's, but the payroll wasn't as big an expense as you would expect. I watch all these crazy restaurant rescue type shows with the likes of Robert Irwin, Gordon Ramsay, etc. And they're always talking about how staffing shouldn't cost anymore than about 33% of revenue. I don't remember having payroll costs anywhere near that mark at McD's. If my memory isn't completely faulty it was more like 15% to 20%. The real killer for us was inventory (food and paper costs) and that was more in the balancing act, having enough to keep up with customers, but not so much as to end up wasting food.

And, just as an observation as to how much McD's makes. I worked at a "slow" store in the middle of bumfuck northcentral PA. In 1990, the last year I worked there, that mediocre store was grossing over $1,000,000 annually. I think back on that and I wonder what my local 24 hour McD's is making nowadays. I don't think it's impossible that my local store is grossing over $8,000,000 and that other busier McD's are making far more.

We have a new McDonalds near us. About 3½ miles from where I sit. I say new, but it's been there a couple years already. I've never been on the property or eaten anything they sell.I make up for you. It's my regular morning coffee stop.